


the before in the after

by impossiblepluto



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Episode: s01e01 The Rising, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Macgyver Cold Open Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25442251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossiblepluto/pseuds/impossiblepluto
Summary: A missing scene set two months after the events at Lake Como
Relationships: Jack Dalton & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 68





	the before in the after

**Author's Note:**

> Is it technically a Cold Open? I don't know. But did I start writing it for the Challenge? Yes, so we're going to go with it.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it and thank you for reading!

The storm blew up quickly. 

Or maybe he missed the warning signs. Distracted, his thoughts turned inward as he ran, rather than towards the sky. Missing the way the blue skies turned dark, the heavy clouds rolled in to cover them. 

Running clears his head. The rhythmic pounding footsteps help him think. 

Usually. 

Jack would be disappointed in his lack of situational awareness. That he let his mind wander so thoroughly that he missed the signs of the impending storm. Leaving himself open to attack. An attack he wouldn’t physically be ready for. 

He pushes himself, as he always does. In a way he shouldn’t be yet. Ignoring the stitch in his side, and the ache in his chest. 

Jack would scold him for that too. 

But some days, it's the only way he feels like he’s still alive.

Even if he had noticed the way the wind bent the trees, and the sky turned a grayish-green, it was mere minutes between the sun shining and the first torrential drops. And he was miles from home. 

The humidity broke seconds after the clouds did. The temperature plummeted. He shivers, sweat cooling in an instant. Fat raindrops rolled down the back of his neck. His previously overheated skin now chilled. 

His hair falls flat against his forehead. He slicks it back, pushing it out of his eyes and keeps running. 

Keeps swimming.

It’s an icy rain that pours down in solid sheets. Hitting the pavement and bouncing back, soaking him twice. He gives up on dodging puddles, his shoes squelch with each step. His t-shirt clings to him like a second skin. The way his white dress shirt did that night. 

Lightning splits the sky and he flinches when a clap of thunder immediately follows. He feels it. The power shaking in his chest.

Throbbing, aching between his ribs, deep in his lungs.

The storm is right on top of him. 

He keeps running, snorting when he inhales too deeply and rainwater fills his nose. Panicked gasping breaths. Struggling to the surface. So tired, so heavy. Lungs burning. Sinking.

Drowning.

He shakes his wet hair from his eyes, and the dark, hazy memories he can’t quite remember from his brain. 

Goosebumps erupt across his skin. 

The streetlights begin clicking on, as Mac turns down a residential street, activated by the premature darkening of the sky, reflecting on the wet pavement. It’s only a few blocks away now, though it’s uphill. His lungs protest the extra exertion and chilly air. 

He’s still recovering. Might always be recovering, his doctors inform him. Warn him that even years from now, the injuries he sustained that night may still affect him. That despite his miraculous recovery, he may never achieve the same level of pulmonary function he had before his injury. Before he drowned. Before he died.

Jack won’t talk about it, but he’s seen his medical file. Demanded to know what happened. How Jack pulled him from the lake, pounded on his chest, and kept him alive until the paramedics arrived. 

His chest still feels tight. He doesn’t know if that’s the residual pneumonia he can’t seem to shake or grief. He can’t shake that either.

Two months ago today his whole world came crashing down. Again. And some days it feels like he’s still in that Lake, struggling. Drowning. 

He knew today would be bad. Memories overwhelming him like the dark water. 

A cough bursts from his chest, slowing his steps as he tries to catch his breath. They were right. Temperature, humidity, and elevation affect him more now than it did before. 

Lung tissue is unforgiving. He worked hard, pushed himself to prove his doctors wrong. Angry and determined and devastated. 

He wonders if his life will always be divided up in a series of befores and afters. Before his mom died. After his dad left. 

Before MIT.

After Pena. 

Before Nicki. 

After Lake Como.

Mac rounds the corner. Warm light burns from the windows. 

The front door opens as soon as the house comes into view. A familiar silhouette steps onto the porch and a minute later is illuminated by another flash of lightning. He should have known. Jack would never let him be alone today, no matter how much he tried to shove him away. 

He was too injured to mark the first week. Freshly weaned from a ventilator, he was barely managing to keep his eyes open long enough to accept his breathing treatments, to sit up long enough for his doctors or nurses or respiratory therapists to listen to his lungs. All he really remembers, every time he woke up, was that Jack was there. 

He was too sick to mark the first month. Home but lost in feverish ramblings and vivid hallucinations and so much pain. All he really remembers every time he surfaced, when he cleared enough to know what was going on was that Jack was there. 

Jack squints into the solid sheet of rain. “Mac!”

Mac waves back and shakes his head. It’s not like he’s going to run past the house without Jack’s beckoning encouragement. He’s halfway up the walk when Jack meets him. 

“Where the hell have you been?” Jack pulls him inside, throwing a towel over his shoulders. 

“Went for a run,” Mac shrugs, coughing into his elbow. 

“In this?” Jack gestures emphatically towards the door.

“Wasn’t raining when I left.” Mac kicks off his shoes, slipping in the puddle he’s leaving on the floor. Jack grabs his shoulders, keeping in upright.

“You’re soaked to the skin. And your lips are blue,” Jack rubs the towels across Mac’s shivering shoulders. “Come on, let’s get you warmed up.” 

Mac coughs again, allowing himself to be guided down the hall to his room. 

“What the hell were you thinking?”

Jack pushes him lightly into the bathroom, he leans against the sink, watching as Jack turns on the shower, placing his hand under the stream gauging the temperature. Letting the water warm up and steam fill the bathroom before he turns back to Mac. 

“Why do you still have those wet clothes on? Do you want to catch pneumonia again?”

Mac shakes his head, peeling the t-shirt off and tossing it in the sink. At Mac’s raised eyebrow, Jack huffs and exits the bathroom.

“Who do you think helped you that whole first month?” He mutters pulling the door only partly closed behind him, until Mac reaches over and gives it a shove. The latch clicks into place. 

Shivers, Mac shucks the rest of his clothes. He steps under the spray. The warmth feels fantastic on his skin. He’s been so cold for so long. His toes and fingers tingle and burn as heat returns to them. Warmth prickles behind his eyes. 

He doesn’t stay under the spray too long. It’s too easy to lose time, to get lost if he lets his mind wander. Just long enough to suds up and rinse, military habits are hard to break. 

Mac wraps a large fluffy towel around his waist and pulls another over his shoulders, drying his face.

There’s a rap at the bathroom door.

“Just me,” Jack says, cracking the door enough to place a pair of sweatpants, a long sleeve t-shirt, boxers, and a pair of warm socks on the vanity, before closing the door to keep the room warmer.

Mac towels dry and dresses quickly. He keeps one towel for his hair as he moves into the bedroom, and raises an eyebrow, half-expecting Jack to be sitting there waiting for him. He heads down the hall, shaking beads of water from his hair. They drip down his neck, dampening the neckline of his t-shirt. 

“Go ahead and get comfy on the couch,” Jack orders from the kitchen as soon as Mac appears. 

“It’s just a little rain,” Mac grumbles.

“You were out in it almost thirty minutes. And don’t think I don’t know that you haven’t been cleared for any kind of distance running yet. So unless you want your doctor to get an anonymous tip about your activities, you’re gonna humor me.”

Mac flops onto the couch, propping his feet on the coffee table, rubbing absently at the muscles in his chest that tweak in displeasure.

Jack moves into the living room, shaking out the blanket draped over the back of the couch and covering Mac’s legs, handing him a mug of hot chocolate. He presses a hand to Mac’s forehead, gauging his temperature, before dropping briefly to his cheek. 

Mac indulges Jack’s worry, wrapping his hands around the mug. He would crawl inside of it if he could. He still feels cold. 

“Thank you,” Mac looks up at Jack, taking in for the first time the dark circles and exhausted, red-rimmed eyes. 

“Drink it, don’t just hold it,” Jack scrubs a hand across the scruff of his beard. He shuffles on his feet as though unsure what to do.

And Mac realizes it’s the first time it’s been just the two of them while he’s been fully coherent since they got back. Mac wasn’t the only person who lost Nicki. He’s been so wrapped up in his own grief that he missed how much Jack has been suffering. Taking Nicki’s death as a personal failure. 

“Do you want to stay?” 

“When is Bozer getting home?”

Mac shrugs. “He might be going to see his parents this weekend, I- I don’t remember.” 

“Oh.”

“I’d like you to stay,” Mac bites his lip, looking up at the uncertainty written on Jack’s face. It’s an expression he’s never seen on him. “If you want.” 

“Yeah?” There’s a glimmer of hope there now.

“I’ve missed you.”

Jack nods, his voice a hoarse whisper. “I’ve missed you too, hoss.”

“I don’t blame you, for what happened. If that’s what you’re thinking. Why you’ve been staying away. I-”

“I appreciate what you’re saying but that doesn’t stop me from blaming myself. And you, I imagine you’re laying the blame on yourself pretty thick.”

Mac shrugs.

“Still can’t figure out how it all went so wrong. And I am sorry, Mac. I’m so sorry.”

Mac takes a sip from his mug, swallowing hard around the lump in his throat. “We’ll be okay, right?”

Jack falters.

“You and me? Cause this is hard enough, I don’t want to lose you in all of this too.”

“Aw Mac,” Jack sinks onto the couch next to him. “No, you’re not going to lose me.”

“It feels like I am.” 

Jack’s hand rests on Mac’s shoulder, giving a tight squeeze, his eyes meet Mac’s. “Never.” 

After a moment, Jack leans back, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “She was my responsibility. You both were. No matter how many times I replay that night, I just can’t-” the words break off with a shake of his head. “It’s not just losing her though. I just- if I got a do-over and I had to choose. Even knowing what she meant to you, and how much losing her hurt you, Mac, I’d still choose you. I’d always choose you.”

Jack looks up towards the ceiling, eyes bright with unshed tears. “That ain’t fair to put on you. I shouldn’t have-” 

“You didn’t choose,” Mac interrupts. His voice a whisper, grief lodges in his throat. “There wasn’t- it’s wasn’t- you didn’t choose. You can’t put that on yourself. You’re starting to sound like me.”

A brittle laugh erupts from Jack. “I can’t lose you, Mac. Thought I was going to. Thought I managed to keep you alive long enough to watch you die in a hospital.”

It’s Mac’s turn to reach out, putting his hand against Jack’s shoulder. “I’m okay. I’m still here.”

“I can’t say goodbye to you. Couldn’t leave you behind in the Sandbox. Couldn’t live without you now.” 

Mac scoots closer, swallowing hard. “I don’t- I can’t lose you either.” 

Maybe life is just a series of befores and afters. That personal connection marking the passage of time. 

He knows there was a time in his life before Jack, but most days it doesn’t feel like it. He’s always been there, a strong presence at his back, protecting him, saving him. As long as they can help it, there will never be a time that is after. 


End file.
